- USAir Flight 427
-
USAir Flight 427 Occurrence summary Date September 8, 1994 Type Rudder malfunction Site Hopewell Township,
Beaver County, Pennsylvania
40°36′14″N 80°18′37″W / 40.60393°N 80.31026°WPassengers 127 Crew 5 Fatalities 132 (all) Survivors 0 Aircraft type Boeing 737-300 Operator USAir Tail number N513AU Flight origin O'Hare International Airport Stopover Pittsburgh International Airport Destination West Palm Beach Int'l Airport 
N527AU Boeing 737-200, a sister aircraft of N513AU, the Flight 427 aircraft.
Cockpit of an early production Boeing 737 showing the primary controls and instruments.US Air Flight 427 was a scheduled flight from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to Pittsburgh, with a final destination of West Palm Beach, Florida. The flight crashed on Thursday, September 8, 1994, killing everyone on board.
The Boeing 737-3B7 flying the route, registered N513AU, was approaching runway 28R of Pittsburgh International Airport, located in Findlay Township, Pennsylvania. The airport was, at the time, the largest hub for the airline.
Contents
Crash
45-year-old Captain Peter Germano and 38-year-old First Officer Charles B. "Chuck" Emmett III piloted the aircraft. At about 6,000 feet (1,800 m) and 6 miles (10 km) from the runway, the aircraft experienced a sudden loss of control and slammed into the ground in a nearly vertical nose down position in Hopewell Township, Beaver County,[1] near Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, killing all 127 passengers and 5 crew members.
Flight 427 has the third highest death toll of any aviation accident involving a Boeing 737-300 after the crash of Flash Airlines Flight 604 and China Southern Airlines Flight 3943.
Investigation
After the longest investigation in aviation history—more than four and a half years—the concluding statement said:
- The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the USAir flight 427 accident was a loss of control of the airplane resulting from the movement of the rudder surface to its blowdown limit. The rudder surface most likely deflected in a direction opposite to that commanded by the pilots as a result of a jam of the main rudder power control unit servo valve secondary slide to the servo valve housing offset from its neutral position and overtravel of the primary slide.[2]
The NTSB concluded that similar rudder problems caused the previously mysterious March 3, 1991 crash of United Airlines Flight 585, and the June 9, 1996 incident involving Eastwind Airlines Flight 517, both of which were Boeing 737s. As a result of the investigation, pilots were warned of and trained how to deal with insufficient aileron authority at an airspeed at or less than 190 knots (218 mph, 354 km/h), formerly the usual approach speed for a B737. Four additional channels of information—pilot rudder pedal commands—were incorporated into flight data recorders, while Boeing redesigned the rudder system on 737s and retrofitted existing craft until the affected systems could be replaced. The United States Congress also required airlines to deal more sensitively with the families of crash victims.[3]
US Airways 427 is no longer a valid flight number on US Airways as of January 2011.
Flight 427 was the second fatal crash in a little over two months at the company (the other being USAir Flight 1016 at Charlotte-Douglas Airport in July 1994). The crashes contributed to the financial crisis USAir was experiencing at the time.[4]
The crash killed noted neuroethologist Walter Heiligenberg (born 1938).[5]
Dramatization
The accident was depicted on the Discovery Channel Canada/National Geographic Channel television series Mayday (also known as Air Emergency or Air Crash Investigation in various countries) series 4 episode entitled "Hidden Danger" ("Mystery Crashes"), alongside United Airlines Flight 585 and Eastwind Airlines Flight 517.
See also
References
- ^ "28 Seconds of Horror," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- ^ NTSB summary
- ^ Remarks from acting NTSB Chairman, 2002
- ^ "Disaster only one in a string of setbacks for troubled company," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- ^ "List of Crash Victims." Wilmington Morning Star. September 10, 1994. 4A. Google News (28 of 49). Retrieved on October 3, 2009.
External links
- NTSB Accident Investigation Docket
- AVweb article
- AVweb supplement
- Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
- 28 Seconds Four-part article from the Saint Petersburg Times
- Boeing 737 Rudder Design Defect
- Remembering Flight 427, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- Pre-Crash accident photos from Airliners.net
- Mourners remember at 15th anniversary
- Memorial location
Books
- Bill Adair, The Mystery of Flight 427: Inside a Crash Investigation, ISBN 1-58834-005-8
- Gerry Byrne, Flight 427: Anatomy of an Air Disaster, ISBN 0-387-95256-X
Jun 06 China Northwest Airlines Flight 2303
Jun 24 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash
Jun 30 A330 test flight crash
Jul 02 USAir Flight 1016
Jul 19 Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901
Aug 21 Royal Air Maroc Flight 630
Sep 08 USAir Flight 427
Sep 12 Frank Eugene CorderOct 31 American Eagle Flight 4184
Nov 03 SAS Flight 347
Nov 22 TWA Flight 427
Dec 11 Philippine Airlines Flight 434
Dec 21 Air Algérie Flight 702P
Dec 24 Air France Flight 8969
Dec 29 Turkish Airlines Flight 278Incidents resulting in at least 50 deaths shown in italics. Deadliest incident shown in bold smallcaps.Categories:- Airliner accidents and incidents caused by design or manufacturing errors
- Aviation accidents and incidents in 1994
- 1994 in Pennsylvania
- Accidents and incidents on commercial airliners in the United States
- Beaver County, Pennsylvania
- US Airways accidents and incidents
- Disasters in Pennsylvania
- Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 737
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